On July 2-4th, Team Alasera spent three days in Burnsville running at the North Star Herding Group Club agility trial. Very warm weather and lack of adequate air conditioning at the trial site, made for some challenging runs. Overall, lots of good moments, but also a relapse of some troublesome behaviors.

Mellie was once again the most consistent performer. She earned three double Q’s with numerous nice placements. Steady as always with just some slow starts during some of the runs. Beautiful finishing sequences however. She is already a quarter of the way to MACH 4!

Ripley earned a rare Double Q with a stand-out performance in his Standard run on Sunday. Showing actual speed, it was a refreshing change of pace. He had two clean runs on Monday but was over time in Jumpers so missed out on that Double Q. We need to get more motivation and speed if we want to make faster progress. On a very positive note, he did NOT visit the judge or a ring crew member the whole week-end. I know he looked their way and thought about visiting, but he stuck with me. Progress!!

Abby suffered from more reverse sneezing attacks. They seem to be related to excitement and it is hard for her not to do it when coming out of her crate. We tried all sorts of things to minimize its impact and only lost out on one run due to it. However, she ended up refusing the teeter twice to NQ on her standard runs. On the bright side, she is yet another Team Alasera Jumpers Specialist-qualifying in all her Jumpers runs and earning two third place finishes and a tie for first.

Ace also nailed all the jumpers courses but the same evil teeter caused trial stress issues for him. He actually did do the teeter one day, but had other faults. Thus, no standard Q’s and no Double Q’s for Ace this week-end. He is a challenge!

Katie had five runs for the week-end and only Q’d in the last one. But it was a doozy. She nailed her Jumpers run in Ex. A class for a first place and earning her AXJ title. Her time was 5 whole seconds faster than Abby’s first place time in the Ex. B class. She now gets to compete for MACH points in her future Jumpers classes as she moves up. Katie had various other issues, including a reluctance to remain on the table, and an unfortunate dropped bar to mar some other runs. But she is doing great and shows fabulous speed that her team mates can only dream of.